What a Difference in Three Years

This photo was taken 3 years ago on June 12, around 7am. I was working the night before as the charge nurse on a typical night on my mother-baby unit, and as I was completing the staff assignments for the following shift, I started getting light headed, my jaw began to ache and I was having pain radiating down my left arm. Some of my teammates noticed I was also a bit pale and grabbed a dynamap to check my vitals... being my stubborn self, I didn't allow them to check until I finished the assignment. By then I was not feeling OK. I was dizzy, the pain in my jaw, arm and now my head was intensifying. My heart rate and blood pressure were significantly elevated, so I headed to the ER to be evaluated. EKG was normal, and they had pretty much ruled out cardiac involvement ... until they gave me a trial dose of nitroglycerin... which if it worked basically meant "we stil don't know, it could still be your heart."

So my thoughts swirled through my mind. My family history has plenty of cancer, but no heart disease before age 55. I was 36 years old. I was overweight. I was depressed and stressed out all the time. My marriage was stressful to say the least. My life was out of balance. And this was one of those wake up calls. They admitted me overnight for observation, partly because of all the imaging studies, they couldn't give me anymore contrast, but still needed to run a couple more tests. The next 30 hours I realized how tired I was... I woke up to eat and to visit when my coworkers came to visit me. I was hooked up to a heart monitor, didn't need much and pretty much slept. I was a dream patient except when my iv got irritated at shift change. The next day as I was performing the test, the cardiologist made an off handed comment about my weight and how fast my heart rate jumped when the test started.

I knew... before he said a word. I knew it was time to change. I had no idea how much change was in front of me. And I'm not even close to finished with my transformation. The physical transformation is visible, but the inner transformation has been even more remarkable.

This was taken a couple days prior at a water park.

And this was about a month and a half ago, at a women's retreat, where I invested time and energy into myself.

And this was a couple days ago... learning and growing into myself. Becoming a better mom, a better nurse, healing and growing, and becoming a better, stronger and more resilient person. I'm learning to "embrace the suck" and do the hard things even if they scare me. I have been really pushing past my comfort zone for the last 2 years. I am tired, but I am growing.

We don't grow when we are comfortable, and while I wouldn't mind taking a break once in q while... I'd rather grow than remain stagnant.

Happy Weekend, Y'all!